Research On Zhou Gangming’s Drama Criticism

Zhou Gangming is a famous and senior writer of modern Chinese literature. His contribution to literature is various, including essays, reports, poetry, novels, dramas, poetry and prose. To the literary theory of Zhou Gangming, researchers prefered to study on his reportage and the theory of literature and art during the Anti-Japanese War rather than study on his drama criticism. This paper is mainly to analyze his drama criticism. Most of his article about drama criticism were written in the early1930s and1940s. In the context of the warand the time pessimistic atmosphere, Zhou Gangming linked his drama criticism with the time spirit and people’s fate. His drama criticism for the mark of time spirit deeply reflected in that resistance of the war is the precondition of all literature.This paper mainly discusses Zhou Gangming’s drama criticismfrom two aspects. The first part classifies the content of his drama criticism, including his drama criticism mainly include national defense drama, the" quality and standard of drama critic, the discussion of histrionic art, the discussion of historical play and the discussion of XiaYan’work. His drama criticism is always around the concept of realistic drama.The second part mainly states the characteristics of Zhou Gangming’s drama criticism. One of the biggest characteristics of Zhou Gangming’s drama criticism is based on the realistic drama. And then it is the pursuit of the true, the good and the beautiful. And to a great extent,it is consistent with the spirit of "speech of literature and art in YanAn symposium".Zhou Gangming’s drama criticism is always around the concept of realistic drama. He put the national crisis and national defense drama in the same position to emphasize the importance and necessity of establishing "defense drama". He summed up the histrionic art which exsisted in that time and advocated to build a new art with life,emotion, technology and thought. As for drama writers and their works, he presented high praise to the realistic technique whit XiaYan’s work. The most important point is that he stressed that the drama critics mustunify the sociology and aesthetics, but not just to criticize with either of them. All of his views are around the concept of realistic drama. It can be said that realism drama is the core of Zhou Gangming’s drama criticism. He think good drama shoud have the quality of the truth, the kindness and the beauty. The truth means dealing with the ralationship of truth and art. The beauty means having art image and aesthetic conception. The kindness means admiting the good quality and the traditional human society. With the aestheticpursuit, Zhou Gangming’s drama criticism is related to his personality in addition to the influence of historical context. To some extent, his pursuit for drama criticism which is consistent with " speech" put forward an idea of keeping up with the times. He thinks drama should follow the thread of times and its artistic characteristics development. He also thinks the aesthetic standard of drama can’t be evaluated by politics or art and it should be the perfect conbination of content and form. However, the length of his drama criticism is littlie but the content is very rich among which his insisting on the principle of realistic creation and aesthetic conception have positive influence and guiding significance.